Beautiful child, how to respond

[Mlovelybabies]

This obviously sounds like a not-stealth boast, but how do I respond to comments about DD’s appearance? She is 2 and DS is 6. They’re both adorable but DD is especially striking, people cross the street just to comment on her beauty. (She looked like a potato when she was tiny, with jaundice and frequent eye infections! People would peer into the pram, shudder and couldn’t even bring themselves to say she was cute). I know that looks can change and beautiful babies might not be beautiful adults but I worry about the effect on her esteem, and on DS’s esteem. She’s a bit shy and just looks down when they comment on her looks. And I know DS feels jealous of the extra attention she gets even though he’s not particularly hung up on appearance.

my response currently is to say, “yes, they’re both very sweet/lovely/wonderful/etc” and not give it any more time. Does that seem appropriate?

People cross the street to comment on your small child's beauty.
Maybe you should contact some professional modelling agencies, or a Hollywood talent agent?
Either that or the people crossing the road are weirdos.

This happened a lot when my son was very young. It was lovely but also very annoying. It will lessen as she gets older and the cute baby look goes!

The expression is jaw dropping. I don't believe for one minute that strangers are crossing the street to tell the OP how beautiful her toddler is.

I wouldn't like this. I only have one DC so when she gets compliments I assume it's just because she's a child and all children are beautiful.

However I was in a restaurant once with her friend when an old woman struck up a conversation. She assumed they were both my children. She said in passing "that one is really beautiful... You will have all the boys after you and leave none for your sister"

I had no idea which one she was referring to (they are both distinctively striking) but I was aghast. Luckily they were chatting and paid no attention. People are dickheads sometimes.

I had this with my two girls who are 17 months apart. The younger gets all the compliments and the older not so much. It makes me seethe as to how people can be so bloody insensitive and it's definitely negatively affected dd1's confidence and self esteem.
I respond to it by either ignoring it completely or saying something like ' I don't know how I made two such lovely girls' or ' and their mum isn't bad either' with a wink, just to try and deflect.

Do they cross the road to make the point?

That’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying one of her children is garnering much more attention than the other and she’s asking for advice how to deal with it.

Whether people literally cross the road or it’s a turn of phrase is irrelevant - I have seen people go out of their way to give certain children attention - whether there’s an actual road involved not the point.

I’ve known other families where looks or gifts are not distributed evenly and it’s certainly something that parents have to give consideration as to how to manage - not necessarily successfully. Sometimes one child is super-academic and another not so.

A friend of mine, always a very goodlooking woman, grew up with her sister being known as the beautiful one within the family and my friend was known as the clever one - so my friend felt unattractive and her sister felt thick.

Perhaps this happens. I doubt very much whether people go out of their way though.
However. Experiences vary.

'Crossing the street to comment on her beauty' ah come on now! Is this a joke post? 🤣🤣
My children both good looking (how-i dont know! 😂😂) but DD is striking as in she has really pale skin. Huge blue eyes and eyebrows that look HD. People comment that they look fake but in a nice way, that she'll never need to pay for eyebrows in a salon etc when she's older. She just says thank you, isn't in any way big headed and will always say something nice back, even if its just I love your scarf or your nails are a pretty colour etc
Never in my entire life have I heard of anyone cross a street to comment on anyone's looks, adult or child and if they did that's batshit crazy behaviour!
Also a 2 year old hasn't a clue what's going on! Come on now OP, I think you are either having us on or you are delusional.

Thanks, but Laura's sister Mary wouldn't have been called Wilder as that was the name of Laura's husband. (But Google tells me Laura did have a daughter, also an author but called Rose.)

Oops - it was Laura who said this.

I have had the same with DC and it is sometimes too much and a little creepy and me being me I don't like to be difficult and cause a scene. I usually say thank you and then I don't know what else to say.

One example is an old lady stopping us and saying my DS 3 is so handsome and harped on and on about it and that's he is going to be a looker when he grows up and he will have girls chasing him! As a mother I don't see my 3 years old! As handsome. He is cute. It wierded me out so much. And DS1 was not impressed infact he atarted to give side eyes and eye rolls 😂

Well then they're not generally good looking. All kids are sweet in their own way but there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that some are better looking others, especially if they have good looking parents.

I wasn’t expecting so many replies tho this thread. As for the street crossing, it happened last weekend in a small village, it wasn’t Euston Road or anything 😂 But people do go out of their way to look at her, might walk across a small shop or similar. It’s not something that happens every day but much much more than I experienced with DS, who is and was a lovely looking child!

And yes, my question is more about responding to the unequal attention that DS and DD get. I know life isn’t fair, but also I see that DS feels a bit left out when people coo over DD and I don’t want him to feel any less because of it.

I’m sure this exact post, word for word has been posted before 🙄

I’m the opposite. My kids are THE CUTEST but I’m realist that me and their dad/ grandparents are the only ones who think that!

I never know what to say when people say my dog is cute. If I agree it sounds weird so I say 'thank you', which sounds even more weird (but more polite!) :)

I quite often don't have time to fuss more than one dog and then I feel bad but their owners pull them away.

My DD used to attract masses of attention because she had insanely beautiful hair (blonde and curly but not from the root, further down, almost like dreadlocks without the matting, fell in a pattern of chunky waves, I have never met anyone with similar hair!) also giant almost violet blue eyes, she was so striking.
People would literally walk up to us in the street and TOUCH HER HAIR!!
People in shops would give her sweets etc and rant on about her hair
One day a woman came up and grabbed her hair and said 'this hair is unbelievable, it's like a sheep's wool' 😳I was actually lost for words but we laughed about it for days!

It is quite annoying and gets boring when you can't walk down the road without being stopped all the time for people to grab hair.

Id probably just explain to the older one that people comment on small children, they do. They can look really cute. And that they did the same to her when she was small. If as they get older the young one is like exceptionally beautiful and the okder one is a plain jane I would try and really focus them both away from measuring people in beauty and make sure they both look inside at their strengths rather than surface level.

I’d cross the road to look at,Chris hemsworth.
not a strangers kid

I am very aware of this when speaking to dogs where there are 2. I always try and give them both the same attention so as to not cause the other one to have a complex.

No one has crossed the road randomly but we live in one of the top ten biggest cities in the world. If you don’t cross the road at the lights, you are likely to get mowed down. Not sure if anyone would bother waiting for the lights and crossing, even if the sexiest man alive was across the road. People also don’t make much eye contact (too weird) or comment on others.

So interesting reading this post! It seems people have tons of time on their hands to cross the road and natter on in someone’s ear. The kid must be a stunner OP to have that kind of reaction. Lucky you!

The OP clearly lives in one of the few parts of the country where people have situational awareness skills and don't go round with their head buried in their phones, nearly walking into other people in the process.

Hmmm. How could they see the child that well from across the street?